A large and increasing portion of the information handled in today's modern office environment is digital. Many organizations, institutions and establishments store, handle and manipulate most of their information, and/or information associated with their activities, in digital forms. In many cases, such information may include confidential, secret or otherwise sensitive information, which, in the wrong hands, may cause serious damage to the owner or keeper of the information and/or to those associated with the owner or keeper of the information.
Uncontrolled information flow, also known as information leakage, is a recognized problem in various industries, organizations and environments. For example, commercial organizations, government agencies, academic institutions and health care facilities may all be at risk of sensitive information being leaked or otherwise provided to unauthorized, possibly hostile entities. Information leakage may be attributed to malicious activities as well as to human errors, such as, for example, negligence or loss of a device.
Much attention has been devoted to devising methods for preventing sensitive information from being copied to, or stored on, removable or other devices by inspecting the information being copied prior to actually copying or storing it on the target device. However, one drawback of such methods is that they interfere with operating systems constraints and may jeopardize their stability.